Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism, 18th Construction (1915), via Sotheby’s

The Impressionist and Modern sale has concluded at Sotheby’s tonight, with 51-lot sale that failed to live up to the auction house’s pre-sale proclamations of a record breaking sale.  The auction brought a final total of £178,590,000, falling just shy of the £186.44 million record for London auctions it was expected to beat. (more…)

Claude Monet, Iris Mauves (1914-1917), via Christie’s

The London summer auctions are underway, after Christie’s opening sale this evening at its King Street location, a steady if somewhat relaxed sale that seemed a markedly subdued affair compared to the fireworks the auction house saw last month in New York.  Capping the 52-lot sale with a final tally of £71,461,000, the evening was still a strong entry in the auction house’s recent outings.  Despite lackluster bidding, the sale achieved a remarkably strong sell-through rate, with only 8 works going unsold.  The auction house seemed content to let a number of works go just below estimate, continuing a commitment to a sales-first strategy outgoing president Steven Murphy had outlined late last year. (more…)

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism, 18th Construction (1915), via Sotheby’s

Following the big ticket sales in Art Basel this past week, the art market’s focus will shift to London this week, where a pair of major Impressionist and Modern Evening sales will launch the last two weeks of market activity before the summer months and their lull of activity.  Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s will face off again following last month’s monumental sales results in New York, with a number of extremely impressive works offered, often with equally impressive price tags. (more…)

Sotheby’s is looking to break the record for the most expensive art auction in London this week, with an Impressionist and modern sale expected to top £203 million.  “The forthcoming sale offers a rich range of highly desirable works, including those that rank among the finest by Manet, Degas, Klimt, Malevich, Gauguin and Miro,” says Helena Newman, global go-chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department. (more…)

Claude Monet, Nymphéas (1905), via Art Observed

The first night of the bustling spring auction week is underway, as Sotheby’s concluded a somewhat unsteady sale last night of Impressionist and Modernist masterpieces that achieved a final of $368,344,000, well over the auction house estimate of $270,000,000.  The final tally saw 14 of the 64 lots go unsold over the course of the evening, which will be the last major Impressionist and Modern sale of the first half of the year on U.S. soil. (more…)

Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal (1908), via Sotheby’s

The Impressionist and Modern Auction week has begun in London, as Sotheby’s closes its doors on a strong set of evening sales.  It was the first sale since the auction house announced its increase in rates for 2015, but buyers seemed undeterred by the price increases, bring the final sales tally for the 54 lot sale to an impressive £170,274,000. (more…)

Claude Monet’s L’Embarcadère will hit the auction block next week during Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and Modern works next week in London.  The “museum-quality” work featuring the landscapes of Zaandam in the Netherlands, is estimated to sell for between £7,500,000 and £10,000,000.    “Monet captures the Dutchness, not merely externally…but also the delicate enveloping light and atmosphere, subtly different from the Ile de France,” writes art historian Ronald Pickvance.  “The superb manner in which he registers the immense and often changing Dutch skies is sufficient proof of this.” (more…)

Edouard Manet, Le Printemps (1881), via Art Observed

Christie’s concluded its sale of Impressionist and Modernist works last evening, capping a short but successful 39 lot sale that only saw four works fail to find a buyer, and which achieved a final tally $165,635,000. (more…)

Alberto Giacometti, Chariot (1951-52), via Sotheby’s

As temperatures begin to drop and the art world looks to begin winding down the Fall 2014 Season, the major auction houses are opening their doors for two consecutive weeks of major sales, beginning on Tuesday with Sotheby’s Evening Auction of Modern and Impressionist Masterpieces, and followed close behind with Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modernist works the next night.  Initial estimates for the week’s sales are already promising major dividends for both auction houses, with several important works expected to break major auction sales records. (more…)

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue (1921), Collection Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. © 2014 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c:o HCR International

“I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects,” Piet Mondrian’s quote reads in the introduction to his expansive retrospective at the Turner Contemporary in Margate.  The Dutch artist, who moved slowly but steadily through the early history of abstraction, explored a diverse body of work in his career, from early impressionist experiments through to his iconic grids, colorful, reductive patterns of black lines and squares of color. (more…)

Vincent Van Gogh, Installation View, via Art Observed

While the Metropolitan Museum of Art is well-known for its constantly rotating series of special exhibitions, this summer sees a new focus on the museum’s permanent collection. For the first time in over a decade, the Met has united its collection of works by Vincent Van Gogh under one roof, where they will stay for the next six months. Typically scattered across the globe on loans to various museum, the Met’s seventeen paintings by the artist is the largest such collection in North and South America. (more…)

Kurt Schwitters, Ja – Was? – Bild (1920), via Christie’s

The Impressionist and Modern Evening Sales concluded Tuesday evening, capping a pair of sales that saw impressive prices on a number of works without pushing any major new records for artists at auction.  (more…)

Pablo Picasso, Le Sauvetage (1932), Via Sotheby’s

The Modern and Impressionist evening sales in New York have closed, following two nights of sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s that failed to achieve the same exceptional sales figures that have marked previous auctions, while still finding buyers for most of the works on sale. (more…)

Christie’s New York Impressionist and Modern Auction on May 6th will sell off over $34 million in art from the collection of late collector Edgar Bronfman, Bloomberg reports.  The sale will feature strong works from Picasso, Matisse and Monet, among many others. (more…)

Georges Braque, Compotier et Cartes (1918), Courtesy Grand Palais

On view at Grand Palais, Galeries nationales in Paris is a retrospective covering the full life and output of French painter and sculptor Georges Braque’s career, beginning with Fauvism to his later works, particularly his birds series. The exhibition will continue through January 6th 2014.

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Per Kirkeby, Untitled (2012), via Michael Werner

A tangible sense of degradation runs through the canvases of artist Per Kirkeby, currently on view at Michael Werner in London.  Walking a fine line between impressionist figuration and pure abstraction, his works seem balanced on a pin, teetering between a fully realized environment and complete structural breakdown, a process the artist acknowledges as “an ongoing process of sedimentation.”  The first exhibition of new work since his 2009 retrospective at Tate Modern, Kirkeby’s new exhibition sees him returning to the same interrogations and explorations of the natural environment, as well as his own interpretation of it.

Per Kirkeby, Recent Paintings (Installation View), via Michael Werner (more…)

Vasily Kandinsky, Murnau: Street with Women (1908), Courtesy The Neue Galerie New York

Currently on view at The Neue Galerie in New York is a survey of German Expressionist works, taken from the gallery’s permanent collection, that explores the opposing but connected themes of primitivism and modernity throughout the work of the era, including work by Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Paul Klee, among others.

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A 1932 painting of Pablo Picasso’s mistress is expected to sell for as much as $56 million at auction next month.  Femme assise pres d’une fenetre has been placed on sale by Sotheby’s auction house, and is guaranteed to sell courtesy of a third-party, “irrevocable” bid.  The 61-lot auction on February 5th will also include works by Claude Monet and Joan Miró, among other notable surrealist and impressionist painters, and is valued at $240 million.

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Edgar Degas‘s Les Choristes (1876-77) via AFP

A valuable pastel by the 19th century Impressionist painter, Edgar Degas (b. Paris, 1834; d. 1917) was discovered missing from the Cantini Museum in Marseille, France, Thursday, December 31. The stolen piece, Les Choristes (also referred to as Les Figurants), measures 27cm by 32cm, and was on loan from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris for an exhibition showcasing twenty Degas works portraying a common theatre theme. It depicts a line of male choir singers preparing for a stage performance. While a museum guard was arrested on Friday in connection with the overnight heist, further investigation is pending and the suspect has been subsequently released. Authorities are continuing to examine CCTV footage in order to ascertain whether or not museum insiders or intruders can be blamed for the theft. Jacques Dallest, a prosecutor leading the case, reports no apparent signs of a break-in and that the pastel appears to have been unscrewed from the wall. Rumors of the work’s value were circulating at upwards of $30 million. However, authorities have since corrected this lofty estimation to assert the pastel’s actual value at £800,000 or $1.14 million.

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A detail from Monet’s “Water Lilies” triptych via NYTimes

After a 7-year long absence, the Museum of Modern Art has brought its Waterlilies back along with an interesting recent acquisition and two paintings on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The breathtaking triptych still holds the power to engulf the viewer in its transcendent and meditative quality. The accompanying paintings complete the experience by physically surrounding one in their lightness of color, spontaneous and sometimes pensive stroke, and a velvet-like surface that suggests a deeper psychological imprint of Monet, who worked on these particularly large pieces for years towards the end of his life. The exhibition, occupying a specially intimate gallery space, will be on view until April 12th, 2010.

Related Links:
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MoMA Homepage
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Moanin’ With Monet [ArtNet]
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Serenade in Blue [NY Times]
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Water World [New Yorker]
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Monet’s Water Lilies Light Up MoMA [NY Sun]
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MoMA Presents… [Art Daily]

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